Throwing Tea

When this country split off from England there was a great concept, No Taxation Without Representation. I think we've gotten back to that grounds again.

I was just listening to a little CSpan announcement, that the House will reconvene at 1 p.m. ET, to consider a bill that makes some technical adjustments to a highway bill. They will be discussing that a Florida highway project was inserted into the bill after it had been passed by the House and the Senate. Calling on the DOJ to investigate it. Oh, right that DOJ.

Doan was appointed in late May, 2006, becoming the first woman to serve as GSA Administrator. With 12,000 empioyees and a $20 billion annual budget, GSA has responsibilty for overseeing the thousands of building and properties owned by the federal government.

Doan became the subject of congressional scrutiny last year for allegedly using GSA to help Republican lawmakers win re-election. Doan denied the allegation, but her appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was disastrous. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the panel, called on Doan to resign over the allegations, but Doan refused to step down.

One down, a whole executive branch of crooks to go. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

Time For Change

Nuclear nonprolifiation was such a good idea. Why the war criminals in the White House ditched it in the case of India was always a puzzle. Now it's a kick in the face to all responsible people. For all that the occupied White House gave away, they are getting nothing in return.

Energy was what supposedly was gained by making war on Iraq. Now that the U.S. military is destroyed there, it seems a really, really bad deal. Oil is what we ought to be getting away from, but not throwing away, which is what is happening.

A $7 billion gas pipeline that would link Iran and India topped the agenda Tuesday as the Islamic republic's president made his first visit to New Delhi, despite strong U.S. objections to the project.

The trip came as India and the United States are struggling to finalize a landmark nuclear energy deal.

But New Delhi has made it clear that it will look to any source to feed its energy hungry economy, and India saw the brief visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a chance kick-start the long-stalled pipeline project.

Ahmadinejad arrived in the evening and met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pratibha Patil during his five hours in New Delhi, India's foreign ministry said. His visit was the first by an Iranian leader in five years.

The pipeline needs to run through Pakistan, India's longtime rival. But disagreements between the two over costs, and Indian fears about the pipeline's security have held up the project.

However, the South Asian countries are reportedly close to striking a deal on how much New Delhi should pay Islamabad for the fuel shipped through Pakistani territory.

That would put the project back on track — a prospect that clearly dismays Washington, which has repeatedly pressed India to back its efforts to end Iran's nuclear program.

We have a White House occupied by dysfunctional idiots, and it has given up everything civilized that distinguished this country, and made us proud.

In additiion, what we gave away is getting us nothing.

It's unable to gain anything even by concessions that were strange and disoriented, like our nuclear assistance to India. This ignored the fact that India refused to allow us to inspect their nuclear facilities. The same thing we're demanding from North Korea just is being thrown as a sop to India. Now guess what, we're trying to keep Iran from developing its nuclear industry, and our good buddy is making it more like a possible. It is almost a joke.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

How Low Do You Go?

A new message, about the proposed Liebury. This is so out of hand.

Friends,The information below is from a United Methodist minister colleague in Tennessee, the Rev. Steven D. Martin. It is important that United Methodists (and those of you who have United Methodist connections) who have signed our petition objecting to building a Bush partisan think tank at Southern Methodist University know that right-wing elements of our church are trying to destroy the key agency of social justice ministry in the UMC with a malicious and expensive law suit. I ask you to contact leaders in the UMC about this matter, especially during General Conference which is in session now through May 2, 2008.

Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, New York CityOrganizer of www.protectSMU.org

+++++++++++++

For some time we have been watching the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a so-called "renewal group" that attacks and undermines the mainline churches. As a United Methodist pastor, I have been particularly concerned about the IRD's attacks on my denomination. I have addressed these concerns in several ways, one of which is to create the video, Renewal or Ruin?, which is viewable in its entirety online.

After learning about the IRD by accident when I witnessed it attempting to manipulate events at my Annual Conference from behind the scenes, I have been watching it for several years. I have been reading everything I can find about this organization and its divisive tactics. I thought I had seen everything. However, I have just learned that the IRD has made a significant move that puts the future of the United Methodist Church (UMC) and its General Boards and Agencies at risk.

I have long believed that the IRD functions as a strategy center, not as a renewal group. While the language of its writers is often couched in terms of church renewal, it is overwhelmingly critical of denominational leaders and structures. The actions of the IRD in regard to a little-known coalition proves this point.

In 2004 an apparent victory for moderation was won when the General Conference defeated a resolution to cripple the financing and mission of the UMC's General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), the agency tasked with interpreting the church's social teachings to the world. However, in recognition of the minority's concerns regarding the use of endowment funds, which provide significant funding to its ministries, in spite of over forty years of consistent legal opinions permitting their use, the Board elected to seek legal judgment from the courts on this issue. To settle this matter once and for all, the GBCS filed a request for a declaratory decision on the use of the United Methodist Building Endowment Fund with the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Five persons only peripherally related to this issue intervened in this case, turning a fairly simple matter of clarification into an expensive contested lawsuit. The Coalition for United Methodist Accountability (CUMA), an organization comprised of the IRD, Good News, and the Confessing Movement (three powerful and well-funded right-wing organizations claiming to work for the renewal of the UMC), is financing the legal expenses of the five individuals who have intervened against the GBCS's request for a declaratory decision on the use of the United Methodist Building Endowment Fund.

It turns out that all of the interveners were recruited to join the action against the GBCS by Mark Tooley, director of the IRD's UM Action project, or the law firm Gammon and Grange, based in Arlington, Virginia.

Why are IRD, Good News, and the Confessing Movement funding the case against GBCS? In a 2004 article published in Good News magazine, Tooley said, "If income from the Methodist Building and old Board of Temperance investments were restricted to alcohol-related work, it would be a devastating blow to Church and Society's ability to lobby for its more favored liberal political causes." Furthermore, Tooley gloats: "Even more devastating would be any legal finding that required Church and Society to reimburse the millions of dollars it has spent over the years from old Board of Temperance assets, in seeming violation of the 1965 trust agreement’s expectation that all income was to be reserved for alcohol-related work."

Forty years of legal opinions have clearly allowed the Board the latitude to use these funds as it has. But how and why did the IRD get involved in this legal case?

The five interveners against the GBCS are C. Pat Curtin, Carolyn Elias, Leslie O. Fowler, John Patton Meadows, and John Stumbo. All are United Methodists and each has been a delegate to the General Conference at one time or another. The interveners testified that they do not all know one another and, when deposed, at least one of them stated he did not know the identities of the other interveners. None of them initiated his or her participation in the lawsuit against GBCS.

Only one of the interveners, Mr. Stumbo, indicated that he and his wife, Helen Rhea Stumbo, an IRD board member, anticipated being asked to contribute to the legal fees related to the intervention against the GBCS.

Ms. Elias said she thought it was Mark Tooley who asked her to be an intervener and that she had no idea who was paying her legal expenses. Mr. Fowler said he was asked to be an intervener by the law firm, Gammon and Grange, and that he had no idea who was paying for his legal expenses. Mr. Curtin said he had heard the IRD was paying his legal expenses. In a sworn deposition made public by the court, John Patton Meadows, an intervener and a Deputy U.S. Attorney, admitted he was not paying his own legal fees nor was he sure who was paying them, but he thought it was CUMA who was doing so. Meadows also acknowledged that he had sent an email to the General Secretary of the GBCS from his work computer in the North Alabama U.S. Attorney's office, saying that he wanted to see him "muzzled" for questioning President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

Meadows also admitted in his deposition that he had received confidential legal documents belonging to the GBCS prior to or during the 2004 General Conference, but that he did not allow that to inhibit him from reading them.

None of the interveners did any research into the background and history of the case beyond reviewing documents provided to them by Tooley, the law firm, and other individuals. Each of the interveners admitted he or she was unaware of any restrictions placed on any gifts given to the GBCS.

The IRD is involved in this case because it has long proclaimed that it would like to bring down the GBCS (as well as the Womens' Division of the General Board of Global Ministries). Tooley's own words in Good News magazine in 2004 assert this.

Now is the time for action. Please circulate this posting as far as you can -- especially among United Methodist General Conference delegates with whom you have contact.

Campaign Is Over, Sweets

Something that happens inside a campaign is mutual support.

When you see that the country needs what you have to offer, and you know that the controlling party, in this case war criminals, has done a great deal of damage that you know you can fix, it makes you pretty determined. You need, your country needs, what you have to offer.

By now you have probably realized I have been in campaigns, I know how it feels to be Hillary Clinton. She's done an amazing job as the Senator from New York, and not so long ago everyone was saying she was not going to get elected, etc. etc.

Why wouldn't she keep going?

But it's the numbers.

In the Senate, a minority keeps us from being represented - because they can stop any bill for weeks, even piddling changes everyone agrees are needed. Just because it keeps the Democratic majority from accomplishing what the country needs, the right wing keeps stalling everything. The country is not what they care about, the power is all they really can see, or understand.

This needs to stop. Our economy has been destroyed, we have been led into a purposeless and endless war, we are the object of the entire world's distaste as well as anyone who cares about humanity, this country has endorsed the torture that every civilized being condemns - that is what matters. We need to win the coming election, not just for us, but for the entire world.

So I am asking Hillary Clinton to withdraw. I know, you know too, you would do a good job, and this country needs you. But as it stands, the job of president needs to be done. Obama will win it. Time to begin working to end the destruction of this country that the right wing has effected.

Fiery Rhetoric

What a preacher does is save souls. I hear fiery stuff indeed. It often is silly, too. I go to a white church. And sometimes I laugh at things I hear there.

As pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for 36 years (he recently retired), the Rev. Wright has a record of good works. From services for the homeless and the elderly to the poor and those in prison, his church has practiced the most giving and generous teachings of Christianity. But with the good came charged rhetoric that has come back to haunt him and Mr. Obama. Most famously, in a 2003 sermon, the Rev. Wright said, "The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, not God bless America. God damn America, that's in The the Bible, for killing innocent people."

Yesterday, the Rev. Wright was unrepentant. He refused to disavow his oft-repeated belief in the sinister myth that the AIDS epidemic is a genocidal government plot to exterminate African Americans. He stood by his blame-America-for-Sept. 11 stance, saying, "You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back to you."

None of this is helpful to Mr. Obama, who could face more calls not only to denounce such inflammatory comments but also to renounce his longtime pastor. We will not join in that chorus. In his address on race in Philadelphia last month after video of the Rev. Wright's fiery sermons burst onto the national scene, Mr. Obama condemned, "in unequivocal terms, the statements of Rev. Wright that have caused such controversy."

I have stood against execution, and I have pointed out that 16 men in Dallas alone have been released, after being condemned, on DNA evidence that showed they were convicted wrongly.

The Bible has in it 10 commandments, and one of them is "Thou Shalt Not Kill". If you damn people who kill, and sometimes do it for wrongful reasons, you are breaking God's commandments. If you preach, you condemn them.

Killing is wrong, and if you believe in keeping the 10 commandments, making war on people is wrong too. Either you accept that or you don't. But when you accept ordination as a pastor you accept the word of God in the Bible, and you preach it.

I don't accept the Bible as God's word. I also don't preach. I listen to those who do and judge for myself. I know some who think 9-11 was a plot, and some who are sure that the Oklahoma City bombing was secretly done by al Quaeda, too. I grew up hearing stuff like that from respected members of the community. Stuff like black people are inferior. I have been told black men can't grow beards. I listen. Sometimes I laugh. But I am not going to shut them up for silly beliefs, either. Heck, I think red meat is probably not good for you. Want to fight about it?

Obama listens to preaching, and some of that is downright wrong. I think that listening to people saying things that are wrong is hardly a big deal. I read WaPo editorials, but I still don't believe in war.

Led by secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, officials want to mitigate the impact of the steep rise in staple food prices and prevent food shortages worsening.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has said an extra 100 million people need food aid because of higher prices.

Food has become increasingly expensive, triggering unrest in several countries.

I never knew my family was sharecroppers until very recently. They literally lost the farm, and went to work growing crops for relatives. My grandmother died from the shame of it.

This is what I've had so much trouble talking about. Its embarrassing that you were dirt poor. But maybe I'm not the only one.

It's been a long, yeh, winding road. And we don't always like to say we ate plates of spaghetti - with a little meat in the mix - and we were told what Good Stuff that was.

Value? Consumer confidence?

When I hear those cretins talking about how we ought to be shopping... I want them to be really hungry, like most of the world's poor are. Living in your mom's basement isn't good enough. And scraps from the table you served aren't what you earned, you earned a living wage.

You refuse to accept less than you earned, you believe that. When you work all day and can't feed your kids, that's cheating you. When billions are going to heads of corporations that fail, that's your money, not theirs.

If we don't have a big salary for working hard, education for your children, roads, health care, you are being cheated. The lie is that you are not worth enough because you weren't born rich. Neither was I. I am ready for everyone, anyone, to have enough.

A Truth Exercise

Though most of us who have watched this occur realize it, today Paul Krugman spells out something I think we want to sit back and look at.

According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the overall effect of the McCain tax plan would be to reduce federal revenue by more than $5 trillion over 10 years. That’s a lot of revenue loss — enough to pose big problems for the government’s solvency.

But before I get to that, let’s look at what I found truly revealing: the McCain campaign’s response to the Tax Policy Center’s assessment. The response, written by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former head of the Congressional Budget Office, criticizes the center for adopting “unrealistic Congressional budgeting conventions.” What’s that about?

Well, Congress “scores” tax legislation by comparing estimates of the revenue that would be collected if the legislation passed with estimates of the revenue that would be collected under current law. In this case that means comparing the McCain plan with what would happen if the Bush tax cuts expired on schedule.

But here’s the thing: the reason the Bush tax cuts are set to expire is that the Bush administration engaged in a game of deception. It put an expiration date on the tax cuts, which it never intended to honor, as a way to hide those tax cuts’ true cost.

You know those cutoffs were not going to happen if the permanent GoPerv majority happened - but if enough stupidity could be induced by misinformation, and we did keep war criminals in power, this is what would happen.

What would make anyone want to end the American prosperity we all grew up with? What I think is not what I want you to think.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

for diane

Poetry

I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my eyes and quench my breath It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill, When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep, Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear... But I've a rendezvous with Death At midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Philly

Some One Cares

There is something wonderful about a lady who still wants to give this country health care. When the media just refused to notice the fact that we in the U.S. have the highest cost health care of all the nations in the world, beat up on Hillary Clinton ever since she tried to work out a rational system of health care, and went for the big issue of lapel pins when some of us really wanted to concentrate on what is happening to our health, she persists.

FOR the last month, news media attention was focused on Pennsylvania and its Democratic primary. Given the gargantuan effort, what did we learn?

Well, the rancor of the campaign was covered. The amount of money spent was covered. But in Pennsylvania, as in the rest of the country this political season, the information about the candidates’ priorities, policies and principles — information that voters will need to choose the next president — too often did not make the cut. After having spent more than a year on the campaign trail with my husband, John Edwards, I’m not surprised.

Why? Here’s my guess: The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.

But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.

It is not a new phenomenon. In 1954, the Army-McCarthy hearings — an important if painful part of our history — were televised, but by only one network, ABC. NBC and CBS covered a few minutes, snippets on the evening news, but continued to broadcast soap operas in order, I suspect, not to invite complaints from those whose days centered on the drama of “The Guiding Light.”

The problem today unfortunately is that voters who take their responsibility to be informed seriously enough to search out information about the candidates are finding it harder and harder to do so, particularly if they do not have access to the Internet.

Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.

What’s more, the news media cut candidates like Joe Biden out of the process even before they got started. Just to be clear: I’m not talking about my husband. I’m referring to other worthy Democratic contenders. Few people even had the chance to find out about Joe Biden’s health care plan before he was literally forced from the race by the news blackout that depressed his poll numbers, which in turn depressed his fund-raising.

And it’s not as if people didn’t want this information. In focus groups that I attended or followed after debates, Joe Biden would regularly be the object of praise and interest: “I want to know more about Senator Biden,” participants would say.

But it was not to be. Indeed, the Biden campaign was covered more for its missteps than anything else. Chris Dodd, also a serious candidate with a distinguished record, received much the same treatment. I suspect that there was more coverage of the burglary at his campaign office in Hartford than of any other single event during his run other than his entering and leaving the campaign.

Who is responsible for the veil of silence over Senator Biden? Or Senator Dodd? Or Gov. Tom Vilsack? Or Senator Sam Brownback on the Republican side?

The decision was probably made by the same people who decided that Fred Thompson was a serious candidate. Articles purporting to be news spent thousands upon thousands of words contemplating whether he would enter the race, to the point that before he even entered, he was running second in the national polls for the Republican nomination. Second place! And he had not done or said anything that would allow anyone to conclude he was a serious candidate. A major weekly news magazine put Mr. Thompson on its cover, asking — honestly! — whether the absence of a serious campaign and commitment to raising money or getting his policies out was itself a strategy.

I’m not the only one who noticed this shallow news coverage. A report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals.

Watching the campaign unfold, I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel: on one side, a self-described 9/11 hero with a colorful personal life, a former senator who had played a president in the movies, a genuine war hero with a stunning wife and an intriguing temperament, and a handsome governor with a beautiful family and a high school sweetheart as his bride. And on the other side, a senator who had been first lady, a young African-American senator with an Ivy League diploma, a Hispanic governor with a self-deprecating sense of humor and even a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife. Issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn’t fit into the narrative template and, therefore, took a back seat to these superficialities.

News is different from other programming on television or other content in print. It is essential to an informed electorate. And an informed electorate is essential to freedom itself. But as long as corporations to which news gathering is not the primary source of income or expertise get to decide what information about the candidates “sells,” we are not functioning as well as we could if we had the engaged, skeptical press we deserve.

And the future of news is not bright. Indeed, we’ve heard that CBS may cut its news division, and media consolidation is leading to one-size-fits-all journalism. The state of political campaigning is no better: without a press to push them, candidates whose proposals are not workable avoid the tough questions. All of this leaves voters uncertain about what approach makes the most sense for them. Worse still, it gives us permission to ignore issues and concentrate on things that don’t matter. (Look, the press doesn’t even think there is a difference!)

I was lucky enough for a time to have a front-row seat in this campaign — to see all this, to get my information firsthand. But most Americans are not so lucky. As we move the contest to my home state, North Carolina, I want my neighbors to know as much as they possibly can about what these men and this woman would do as president.

If voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, apparently we will have to demand it. Not by screaming out our windows as in the movie “Network” but by talking calmly, repeatedly, constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility. Do your job, so we can — as voters — do ours.

Elizabeth Edwards, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is the author of “Saving Graces.”

Growing Your Own Stuff

Blackeyed peas, first day they sprouted.

Got my own garden, which you will see also, posted on Saturday.

I just love that NY Mary is hatching out her chickens. We all need to start gardening, and if you don't have some herbs in the kitchen at least, I think you ought to start growing some. The taste is unbeatable.

When I was a child, we got boxes of little chicks, put them in the kitchen with a light bulb for warmth, and when it got warm enough we had a chicken farm in the back of the large yard.

The problem with this is that on Sundays when we came home from church, it was one of us kids' turns to catch two chickens, wring their necks and pop them in a pot of boiling water, pluck and cut them up for dinner.

You can imagine this was not a lesson in ethics. It was one of necessity.

I still recall finding that one of the chickens we had chosen for dinner had eggs in her - in diminishing sizes.

We had killed the golden laying hen.

Of course, I think you need to start growing your own.

While many companies are now rushing to "go green," recent surveys show American consumers are getting turned off by the organic hype for three reasons: price, skepticism and confusion.

The percentage of consumers who believe organic products are good for them is down to 45%, while those who believe they're good for the environment has fallen to 48%, according to the latest survey from consulting firm WSL Strategic Retail. Both measures stood at a 54% approval rating two years ago.

I also think you want to hoe up a row before you do. See above. It's time to do our part. and i am so happy if you grow something of your own.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Bonus Critter Blogging: Hawksbill Turtle

She's Done It Again

One thing we can always count on with this administration is that when it comes to a foreign policy initiative, it will move heaven and earth (and, with frightening regularity, a brigade) to find a way to fail. This week it was Secretary of State Condaleezza Rice's turn. Her attempt to convince Iraq's Arab neighbors to open embassies in Baghdad failed miserably. The Arab nations weren't buying what Secretary Rice had to sell, and with good reason, according to this April 24, 2008 article in The Brunei Times.

SHE came, she saw and she failed again! US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might go into the annals of US history with the dubious distinction of having most failed missions to her credit. Another failure was added in her cap on Tuesday night when she failed to win commitment from Iraq's neighbours to any immediate strengthening of diplomatic or economic support for the Baghdad government.

Rice, who had been on a whistle-stop tour of the Gulf to rally for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, saw her hard work coming to naught when Iraq's neighbours failed to make any commitment on writing off Iraqi debts and establishing diplomatic missions in battle-scarred Baghdad. ...

Dr Rice should know that it is the wrong policies of the US which have made Iraq the most dangerous place on the planet, a haven for al-Qaeda and a political chessboard for Iran to checkmate the US from wielding a wider influence in the region. Five years ago when the US occupied Iraq, it had ample time to establish rule of law and democracy. But the US administration failed to install a creditable and effective alternative government in Iraq. Instead of consolidating Iraqi institutions, the US went about dismantling them. The Iraqi army was disbanded, rendering hundreds of thousands soldiers jobless. Same was done with Iraqi state institutions and the Baath Party.

Worst of all, the US opened a can of sectarian hatred by setting up Iran's allies and militias as the new rulers and providing them with money, weapons, and political and moral support and ultimately pushed Iraq from the Arab fold towards Iran. That is why none of the Iraq neighbours even uttered a word about writing off its debts or given their word on establishing missions. Security is not the real reason, as many other foreign countries have kept diplomatic missions in Baghdad despite worsening security situation. [Emphasis added]

But, hey! What did you expect? A government that didn't know the difference between Sunni and Shia is certainly not going to know the difference between Arab and Persian. And besides, this government doesn't do "nuance." It doesn't have to. This is America we're talking about.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,Where there is hatred, let me sow love;where there is injury, pardon;where there is doubt, faith;where there is despair, hope;where there is darkness, light;where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;to be understood as to understand;to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Yep. I do believe this. It's something I repeat often. Sorry if you are offended by my beliefs, but I feel like we're all free and we can believe what seems right to us.

I will practice teachings that command us to love one another. I take pride in the teachings of those who ask us all to refuse to torture, as I promoted to you yesterday.

We have allowed war criminals to take over our government. We are going to have to take control from them. They are destroying all our values.

For those of you who didn't grow up Southern Methodist,and find out it means that people with dark coloration aren't allowed to belong to your church, I offer you this that gives you an option to give a boot to horrors that have been visited on our country.

Please join me, and other signers of this petition, in rejecting the worst we have ever had in high office in this country.

Sorry to repeat myself,but here you are:

Subject : AN APPEAL TO SMU PETITION SIGNERS

I am Andrew J. Weaver, who organized the petition at www.protectSMU.org. I am an ordained United Methodist minister and research psychologist living in New York City. There are over 11,700 petition signers from every state, including 29 U.S. Bishops. The petition also has worldwide support from Methodist leaders in Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and Sri Lanka.

President Gerald Turner of SMU Sends Out Letter

On April 11, three days after Gerald Turner sent a letter to all the delegates to the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church (UMC) extolling the supposed financial advantages and other virtues of the Bush library and partisan think-tank, Bush announced to the media that he has been deeply involved from the beginning in the details of the use of torture that he authorized.

ABC News reported: “President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency.” According to White House sources, the discussions about torture techniques were so detailed that some of the “interrogation sessions were almost choreographed” (1-2).

A month earlier, on March 8, Bush vetoed legislation banning waterboarding and other methods of torture used by government employees. The legislation would have limited CIA agents to 19 less-aggressive tactics outlined in the U.S. Army field manual. The president stated that the government “needs to use tougher methods than the U.S. military to wrest information from terrorism suspects” (3). It has been highly documented that at least 19 prisoners have been tortured to death by the U.S. military (4).

Waterboarding has a long and sickening history. It was used as a means of torture and coerced baptism during the Protestant Reformation and Spanish Inquisition to convert Jews, Mennonites, witches, and other suspected heretics. It consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face to force the inhalation of water into the lungs. As the victim gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive.

Torture is a crime against humanity and a violation of every human rights treaty in existence. It represents a betrayal of the deepest values of the UMC that founded and built SMU. In the supposedly “less enlightened” 18th century, John Wesley explicitly preached against the torture of prisoners of war:

War itself is justifiable only on principles of self-preservation: Therefore it gives us no right over prisoners, but to hinder their hurting us by confining them. Much less can it give a right to torture, or kill, or even to enslave an enemy when the war is over (5).

Bush, who claims to be a “proud Methodist,” shows no sign of contrition or regret or remorse or repentance for his un=Christian behavior. To the contrary, he continues to try to justify himself and protect those in our government who have used and continue to use torture. Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoffer in Nazi Germany rightly called the cowardliness of the Christians in that terrible time to make evil-doers accountable for their wicked deeds “cheap grace”. Building a monument to this torturer-in-chief on a UMC campus to “celebrate this great president, celebrate his accomplishments” (6) is a defilement of our church that will permanently damage our credibility to proclaim the Christian faith.

(4) Oath Betrayed: Military Medicine and the War on Terror by Steven H. Miles

(5) http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/slavery

(6) Statement by Don Evans, the Chair and a chief fundraiser for the George W. Bush foundation on Feb. 22, 2008

The Legal Case is in Place

Our legal team tells us that we must go to court to protect the property rights and voting rights of the 290 Jurisdictional delegates who are the elected representatives of the property owners, the 1.83 million UMC members of the South Central Jurisdiction (SCJ). To do so we need at least one delegate willing to step forward to be the plaintiff in the case. So far we have not found such a delegate. Many fear the consequences to their future ministry if they challenge their bishop. If you know a delegate in the SCJ who might be a part of our case please ask her or him to contact me at ajweaver711@aol.com.

The lawyers, including a former head of the Texas Bar Association, who have given us free counsel and legal research for several months, are telling us we have a solid legal case which we have a very good chance to win. Through your wonderful generosity we have the funds to start the legal process. You have my deep appreciation for your faithfulness. Unfortunately, without a delegate we can not go forward. Can you help us locate one?

Finally, continue to encourage your friends and colleagues to sign the petition. Each person is important. We need to tell officials of the UMC at every level that we find an association with George W. Bush unacceptable.

With Best Regards,Rev. Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D.

Please don't let war criminals use the white branch of the Methodist Church as cover for their crimes.

What Isolation Does

Imagine, if you will, being a criminal defense attorney trying to prepare your client's case for trial in which a guilty verdict could mean the death penalty. Then imagine that your client is of no help to you: he doesn't know why he has been arrested; he doesn't remember events, or, if he does, he doesn't remember their sequence; sometimes he can't even concentrate long enough to answer your questions because he can't remember what the questions even were. That's the scenario now playing out in real life for the lawyers assigned to defend the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. The NY Times has a gut wrenching article that provides some of the details of the impossible task facing the attorneys.

Next month, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was once a driver for Osama bin Laden, could become the first detainee to be tried for war crimes in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. By now, he should be busily working on his defense.

But his lawyers say he cannot. They say Mr. Hamdan has essentially been driven crazy by solitary confinement in an 8-foot-by-12-foot cell where he spends at least 22 hours a day, goes to the bathroom and eats all his meals. His defense team says he is suicidal, hears voices, has flashbacks, talks to himself and says the restrictions of Guantánamo “boil his mind.” [Emphasis added]

While the actual conditions these defendants are being held in are rarely described (thanks to the secrecy imposed by the Pentagon), we do know that those set for the first round of "trials" are kept apart from the other prisoners and from each other "for security reasons." The effect of that isolation should come as no surprise: we've long known that such solitary confinement for even short periods of time leads to mental deterioration, even madness. These men have been held for over six years, most of the time in the small metal cages. Well, it's possible that we're now going to get more of the gruesome details.

... the claim about Mr. Hamdan’s mental health could expose the workings of Guantánamo. According to military statistics, three-quarters of the detainees have been held recently in two “camps” that look much like American prisons. Camp 5 and Camp 6, heavily guarded concrete buildings, hold men who have yet to face trial. Behind a heavy door, each cell has a handful of sanctioned items including a cup and a Koran.

Officials concede that the daily two hours of recreation in a chain-link pen is sometimes offered in the dark. From inside their cells, detainees cannot see the outdoors. From the exercise pens they sometimes can see only a sliver of sky.

And the Pentagon response? A mix of creative euphemisms and truly bizarre comparisons:

Pentagon officials say that Guantánamo holds dangerous men humanely and that there is no unusual quantity of mental illness there. Guantánamo, a military spokeswoman said, does not have solitary confinement, only “single-occupancy cells.”

In response to questions, Cmdr. Pauline A. Storum, the spokeswoman for Guantánamo, asserted that detainees were much healthier psychologically than the population in American prisons. Commander Storum said about 10 percent could be found mentally ill, compared, she said with data showing that more than half of inmates in American correctional institutions had mental health problems. [Emphasis added]

"Single-occupancy cells" ranks right up there with "intensive interrogation techniques" for gov-speak phrase of the millennium. And what Cmdr. Storum fails to note is that inmates in American prisons have already been tried, knew what the charges against them were, and had access to mental health evaluations to determine their competency to stand trial. Their current mental health problems are due, in large part, to the conditions in which they currently reside. Yes, the state of our civilian prisons are shameful, which is why comparing Gitmo to them is such a chilling, if unintentional, admission.

Mr. Hamdan has yet to be tried, doesn't know with any specificity the charges against him, and doesn't know precisely what evidence will be used at trial. After six years in a 6x12 foot metal cage, thousands of miles from his home and family with only the promise of one phone call a year to them, he has had his sanity wrenched away to the point that he can't even participate in a "trial" for his life.

Under the Guise of Religion

I received this message and send it on to you. Please join us who will not let the war criminals use a cover of an honest religion to kill, maim and destroy human beings.

Subject : AN APPEAL TO SMU PETITION SIGNERS

I am Andrew J. Weaver, who organized the petition at www.protectSMU.org. I am an ordained United Methodist minister and research psychologist living in New York City. There are over 11,700 petition signers from every state, including 29 U.S. Bishops. The petition also has worldwide support from Methodist leaders in Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and Sri Lanka.

President Gerald Turner of SMU Sends Out Letter

On April 11, three days after Gerald Turner sent a letter to all the delegates to the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church (UMC) extolling the supposed financial advantages and other virtues of the Bush library and partisan think-tank, Bush announced to the media that he has been deeply involved from the beginning in the details of the use of torture that he authorized.

ABC News reported: “President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency.” According to White House sources, the discussions about torture techniques were so detailed that some of the “interrogation sessions were almost choreographed” (1-2).

A month earlier, on March 8, Bush vetoed legislation banning waterboarding and other methods of torture used by government employees. The legislation would have limited CIA agents to 19 less-aggressive tactics outlined in the U.S. Army field manual. The president stated that the government “needs to use tougher methods than the U.S. military to wrest information from terrorism suspects” (3). It has been highly documented that at least 19 prisoners have been tortured to death by the U.S. military (4).

Waterboarding has a long and sickening history. It was used as a means of torture and coerced baptism during the Protestant Reformation and Spanish Inquisition to convert Jews, Mennonites, witches, and other suspected heretics. It consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face to force the inhalation of water into the lungs. As the victim gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive.

Torture is a crime against humanity and a violation of every human rights treaty in existence. It represents a betrayal of the deepest values of the UMC that founded and built SMU. In the supposedly “less enlightened” 18th century, John Wesley explicitly preached against the torture of prisoners of war:

War itself is justifiable only on principles of self-preservation: Therefore it gives us no right over prisoners, but to hinder their hurting us by confining them. Much less can it give a right to torture, or kill, or even to enslave an enemy when the war is over (5).

Bush, who claims to be a “proud Methodist,” shows no sign of contrition or regret or remorse or repentance for his un=Christian behavior. To the contrary, he continues to try to justify himself and protect those in our government who have used and continue to use torture. Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoffer in Nazi Germany rightly called the cowardliness of the Christians in that terrible time to make evil-doers accountable for their wicked deeds “cheap grace”. Building a monument to this torturer-in-chief on a UMC campus to “celebrate this great president, celebrate his accomplishments” (6) is a defilement of our church that will permanently damage our credibility to proclaim the Christian faith.

(4) Oath Betrayed: Military Medicine and the War on Terror by Steven H. Miles

(5) http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/slavery

(6) Statement by Don Evans, the Chair and a chief fundraiser for the George W. Bush foundation on Feb. 22, 2008

The Legal Case is in Place

Our legal team tells us that we must go to court to protect the property rights and voting rights of the 290 Jurisdictional delegates who are the elected representatives of the property owners, the 1.83 million UMC members of the South Central Jurisdiction (SCJ). To do so we need at least one delegate willing to step forward to be the plaintiff in the case. So far we have not found such a delegate. Many fear the consequences to their future ministry if they challenge their bishop. If you know a delegate in the SCJ who might be a part of our case please ask her or him to contact me at ajweaver711@aol.com.

The lawyers, including a former head of the Texas Bar Association, who have given us free counsel and legal research for several months, are telling us we have a solid legal case which we have a very good chance to win. Through your wonderful generosity we have the funds to start the legal process. You have my deep appreciation for your faithfulness. Unfortunately, without a delegate we can not go forward. Can you help us locate one?

Finally, continue to encourage your friends and colleagues to sign the petition. Each person is important. We need to tell officials of the UMC at every level that we find an association with George W. Bush unacceptable.

Just A Little Humanity, Please

About two dozen relatives (wives, husbands, children) of people who died in the 9/11 attack have had to live anonymously since that day, not able to openly attend memorial services or even to mention to neighbors that loved ones were lost in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Why the secrecy? They are illegal immigrants fearful of being subject to extortion and (even worse) deportation. An article in today's NY Times announced that these people have been given some hope from an unlikely source, the Department of Homeland Security.

Federal officials on Thursday opened a path to temporary legal status for illegal immigrants whose spouses or parents died on 9/11, a step the families’ supporters called a breakthrough in the effort to allow them to remain permanently in the United States.

Lawyers for the immigrants said a concession by Homeland Security officials would help to bring the family members out of the shadows. They also said the measure should help clear a political logjam that has stalled bills in Congress that would grant the immigrants permanent legal status.

The reason for the congressional logjam is absolutely chilling: some members of Congress didn't want to extend the privilege of continued residence in the country to criminals and terrorists. That meant that the surviving families had two choices: one, come out to the immigration authorities, establish that they were neither criminals nor terrorists, and hope for mercy; or, two, keep hiding behind anonymity and hope for the best. It's not hard to understand why these families chose the second option.

Fortunately, many of them had lawyers, and one of those lawyers, Debra Brown Steinberg, contacted the DHS to see if something could be done in such a fashion to open up the process without the threat of deportation hanging around on the fringes. She finally got the answer she and her clients could live with.

Stewart A. Baker, an assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, said in a letter to Ms. Steinberg that under the new procedure the illegal immigrants could provide biographical information and immigration history to the authorities without revealing their names, with the assurance that the information would not be used to deport them.

Homeland Security officials will use the information to decide whether to give the immigrants a temporary humanitarian parole to allow them to live and work legally in the United States, Mr. Baker wrote. The parole would not be granted to immigrants with criminal records, ties to terrorism or formal orders of deportation, he said.

Now, there. Was that so hard? Just a little humanitarian gesture that is going to be the source of some hope for people who lost as much as anyone else on 9/11. It took over six years, but the government has finally done what governments are supposed to do: provide some protection and some help to those who need it.

The Prison State

Adam Liptak had a terrific column on the burgeoning US prison population in Wednesday's NY Times. The comparison of the US statistics with the rest of the world was staggering.

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

One explanation for the disparity is the fact that the US tends to have a lot of crimes committed with guns, which are easily accessible in the country, unlike the rest of the world. In most states, the use of a gun in the commission of a crime results in enhanced sentencing. But more has to be at work here.

Despite the recent decline in the murder rate in the United States, it is still about four times that of many nations in Western Europe.

But that is only a partial explanation. The United States, in fact, has relatively low rates of nonviolent crime. It has lower burglary and robbery rates than Australia, Canada and England.

People who commit nonviolent crimes in the rest of the world are less likely to receive prison time and certainly less likely to receive long sentences. The United States is, for instance, the only advanced country that incarcerates people for minor property crimes like passing bad checks, Mr. Whitman wrote.

Efforts to combat illegal drugs play a major role in explaining long prison sentences in the United States as well. In 1980, there were about 40,000 people in American jails and prisons for drug crimes. These days, there are almost 500,000.

As the article makes clear, the authorities, particularly Attorney General Mukasey, are resisting any call for the reduction of sentences for drug offenses. Diversion programs, like those being tried in California for first offenders with minimal amounts of drugs involved (not enough for sales), are still too new to make any definitive conclusions, but they do appear to have had some success, although apprently Mr. Mukasey would disagree with that assessment. He represents that portion of the American public that believes drug offenders are dangerous criminals who need to be locked away, even for a first offense.

But it is not just the frequency with which incarceration is used as a sentence which distinguishes the American justice system from the rest of the world. The length of our sentences far exceeds those of our world neighbors.

Still, it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the incarceration lists. If lists were compiled based on annual admissions to prison per capita, several European countries would outpace the United States. But American prison stays are much longer, so the total incarceration rate is higher.

That rate, according to some analyses may be as high as 1% of the American population, which I find astounding. Given the cost to states for the building and running of prisons for that many people, it is no wonder that state budgets are beginning to buckle under the strain. Californians are beginning to realize this first hand.

While there are those who would argue that those who break the law must pay for their malfeasance, I don't see why locking people away for years for non-violent and/or victimless crimes is particularly necessary in a civilized society. It's time to revisit this aspect of our justice system.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Thursday Birdblogging

The wryneck, only migratory woodpecker

Red-backed shrike

Some species that are disappearing, as posted for Earth Day this week.

I am putting up some pictures so you will know what the losses are - the red-backed shrike and the wryneck. Please think of these lovely creatures, change to those squirrely lightbulbs, and bicycle or walk if you can.

An Idea Whose Time Has Ended

It appalls me that folks are still debating the merits of "abstinence only" sex education programs for teens. Look, folks: the programs don't work. Teen pregnancy rates rose for the first time in years, so have STD rates among teens. Some teens will have sex, and they need the appropriate information to protect themselves. What about this is so hard for allegedly rational people to get?

Continued federal funding of abstinence-only sex education in public schools was debated before a House committee Wednesday amid questions about whether the government should sponsor a program that many experts say doesn't work.

Most of the 11 witnesses who appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform advocated instead for comprehensive programs that include information about how teenagers can protect themselves from pregnancy or disease if they choose to engage in sexual activity.

"The concern that many of us have with abstinence-only programs is the idea that one size fits all," said Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), a member of the panel.

Both sides agreed that abstinence should be the core of any sex education program for teens. Concerns were raised, though, over how much information students should receive about issues such as condom use and methods of protecting against sexually transmitted diseases. ...

...several witnesses emphasized that despite 11 years of federally funded abstinence programs, at a cost of more than $1.3 billion, teens are still having sex and becoming infected with sexually transmitted diseases. Those who support comprehensive plans said teens should get the information they need to protect themselves. [Emphasis added]

The article points out that when the federal program was first introduced, 49 states signed up for the money (California wisely refrained). Now only 39 states are engaged in the program. Given the statistics from reputable studies (not the one submitted by the Heritage Foundation, which apparently wasn't peer reviewed before publication), the ten states who backed out of the program made wise decisions.

While I don't happen to believe that abstinence should be the core of any such program (it smacks too much of a particular religious point of view), if it has to occupy that role to keep the government funding for sex education, it needs to be balanced with hard information on the proper use of condoms and the use of birth control devices. These kids' lives will depend on it.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Another Good Idea

As I've remarked over the past several months, California is in a world of hurt when it comes to our state budget. The red ink is so deep that the bailout requires some pretty drastic measures. The measures chosen by the governor and the GOP members of the legislature include cutting funding of the schools and social programs, a hiring freeze and wage freeze for state workers, and the closing of state parks. They figure those proposals are more fiscally sound than raising taxes on the wealthy.

Well, the state commission that sets the salaries for elected officials, including the state legislature has come up with another idea. From today's Sacramento Bee:

With state finances in turmoil, the state salary-setting commission on Tuesday took a step toward lowering the pay of California legislators and statewide elected officials.

The California Citizens Compensation Commission informally agreed that this was no time to raise the pay of members of the Assembly and state Senate, the governor, lieutenant governor and several other constitutional officers.

Two panel members, Chairman Charles Murray and Kathy Sands, said they want the commission to consider reducing salaries, given the precarious condition of the state budget and the drastic cuts to state and local government services that are under consideration. ...

"We have a deficit of $7 billion" that news reports say will double by this summer, Murray, of San Marino, said during the short meeting. "Everybody has to take a cut."

Sands, a retired banker and former mayor of Auburn, said a vote to reduce top government officials' salaries would send a message about their performance.

"We don't have a budget and they're not working any overtime to get it done," she said. "People have said that to me. They're not doing their job."

What a novel idea: holding the state's elected officials to the same standards the rest of us have been forced to adhere to. And the really fun part of the proposal is that apparently the commission can in fact reduce the pay of state officials. Because it's never been done before, the process is a little murky, but I'm sure with a little more research and a little creativity the commission can get the job done, assuming all of the commission members fall into line with the two mavericks who are obviously as pissed off as the rest of us.

Get That Hand Out of Your Pocket

It's all your fault, didn't you know that? You bought things.

Actually, I know one of the guilty, a family member who has an MBA from Harvard Business School, and who refinanced his house and bought stocks just when the recession of the 90's happened, recouped gradually and did it again - to travel.

But for the most of us, going into debt happened when we had kids whose futures included going to higher education, health issues arose, jobs were lost, or lately, expenses went up by much greater proportions than our income.

That makes it really offensive that the 139% of income that debt has become is thrown at us as our 'shopping spree'. Samuelson, of course, touts lowering taxes as the way to boom times, although that has proved wrong, and has never shown any remorse for defrauding the worker with lower wages and increased tasks (productivity) who he expects to keep us afloat.

Transfixed by unruly financial markets, we may be missing the year's biggest economic story: the end of the Great American Shopping Spree. For the past quarter-century, Americans have been on an unprecedented consumption binge -- for cars, TVs, longer vacations. The consequences have been profound, and the passage to something different may not be an improvement.

It was the ever-expanding stream of consumer spending that pulled the U.S. economy and, to a lesser extent, the global economy forward (imports satisfied much of Americans' frenzied buying). How big was the consumption pull? In 1980, Americans spent 63 percent of national income (gross domestic product) on consumer goods and services. For the past five years, consumer spending equaled 70 percent of GDP. At today's income levels, the difference amounts to an extra $1 trillion annually of spending. (snip)What can replace feverish consumer spending as a motor of economic growth? Health care, some say. Health spending will surely increase. But its expansion will simply crowd out other forms of consumer and government spending, because it will be paid for with steeper taxes or insurance premiums. Both erode purchasing power. Higher exports are a more plausible possibility; they, however, depend on how healthy the rest of the world economy remains without the crutch of exporting more to the United States.

But what if nothing takes the place of the debt-driven consumption boom? Its sequel is an extended period of lackluster growth and job creation. Somber thought. The ebbing shopping spree may challenge the next president in ways that none of the candidates has yet contemplated.

Remember when George HW couldn't tell interviewers what a gallon of milk cost? This is that detached from reality.

When us DFH's are spending money that we can't see repaying, generally it's because we've been walloped by conditions we can't handle. I suspect that the most part of our debtors are in the same fix.

You knew you'd get the blame, and you know you'll get the bill. When you have to put that food on the family, it costs a lot more than it did this time last year, same-o same-o on the gas in the car, and the insurance if you still have any.

But it was your shopping, see. You bought that graduation present? Shame.

It is this sort of thinking that makes GoPervs cut back on 'entitlements' like social security and throw lots of our money at Halliburton and Blackwater. We might waste it on lunch.

*********************************************************

From Yoh There at Ptarmigan Nest, a very profound item.

The ECHR is an interesting court. It is not an appeal court above national or even European institutes, as one might think. It is not part of the European Union, but an institute of the Council of Europe, of which 47 countries are member. It’s goal is to spread democracy and human rights.

The court only adheres to one single “law”, the The European Convention on Human Rights. The convention states ethical and human rights guidelines. Every citizen of the member states can individually appeal on this convention, first at the national courts, but appealing all the way up to the ECHR in Strassbourg (which is located in North-Eastern France). In fact the only defendant is ones own country.

The ECHR has a backlog of about 80.000 cases. A serious restructuring has to be done, but Russia is the only country blocking that. It is believed this is the result of convictions by the ECHR in several cases revolving issues in Chechen (Tsjetsjen).(snip)Reaffirming their profound belief in those fundamental freedoms which are the foundation of justice and peace in the world and are best maintained on the one hand by an effective political democracy and on the other by a common understanding and observance of the human rights upon which they depend;

My hopes are alive, that there will be a fit ending to the era of war criminals in high office in the U.S.

Crooked Cop

There has been so little news on the Jack Abramoff investigation that I had pretty much forgotten about it. I guess I assumed that once a couple of congresscritters got disgraced and Abramoff himself got nailed the investigation was over. Clearly I was wrong. This AP article, published in today's Los Angeles Times, indicates that the investigation is ongoing and even includes the Justice Department itself as a target.

The Justice Department lost one of its own to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal Tuesday as a former high-ranking department attorney pleaded guilty to conflict of interest.

Robert E. Coughlin II admitted in federal court in Washington that he accepted meals, concert tickets and luxury seats at Redskins and Wizards games from a lobbyist while helping the lobbyist and his clients. He pleaded guilty to a single conflict-of-interest charge and faces up to 10 months in prison under a plea deal with the government. ...

Coughlin, 36, lives in Texas. He accepted the gifts from 2001 to 2003 while working on legislative affairs for the Justice Department. He later became deputy chief of staff of the department's criminal division -- the division handling the Abramoff probe -- before he resigned a year ago, citing personal reasons.

The lobbyist directly involved was not Jack Abramoff, but rather one of his lieutenants, Kevin Ring, who is still under investigation. Abramoff appears in the court papers as "Lobbyist B" and as Ring's hectoring boss, pressuring Ring to close the deal for one of his clients, the Choctaw Tribe.

What is so astounding is that Abramoff's corruption reached into the Justice Department itself. At the same time, what is so heartening is that there are still some in the Justice Department who take their jobs seriously enough to root out the corruption in their midst.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Different Views, Different Wars

Always interesting to see the views our media doesn't encounter while it's being inundated with the paid 'expert' communities of the hired guns and the Pepperdine shills. Wouldn't you know it, there are Pakistanis we never hear from, who are trying to get their country back? While Musharraf has used our aid to keep his power, they have been helped out by the ones we like to call insurgents, or al Quaeda, or whatever we are claiming is going to come bomb over here if we stop dropping those smart bombs on them and their neighbors, kids, cows, and whatever else is in the area. The following is from "Negotiate with Bitter Pashtuns who Cling to Religion, Guns."

Many conservative Pakhtuns believe that the fighting in Swat, Kohat and Waziristan is a war of liberation against US occupation of Afghanistan; they fight the Pakistani state because of its alliance with the US. However, it does not make it a US war alone. Whatever may be the case at the start, this is now Pakistan's war, since the objective of the insurgents is to change the nature of the Pakistani state. To fellow Pakistanis I would say that it is our war, whether we like it or not.

Compare what Aziz has written to General Musharraf's speech on September 19, 2001, when he told Pakistan that his aim was to "save Afghanistan and Taliban." What Musharraf said in that speech was that supporting the war against the Taliban was the "lesser of two difficulties," compared to driving the U.S. into the arms of India. All negotiations with militants pursued by Musharraf's government had as their aim to balance the imperative of acting against al-Qaida with that of saving the Taliban as a strategic asset for Pakistan.

Aziz says the opposite: the Taliban and other militants are fighting "to change the nature of the Pakistani state," and that therefore "It is our war, whether we like it or not." Negotiations in support of the expansion of democracy and federalism in Pakistan are not the same as negotiations in support of balancing military action against al-Qaida with preservation of the Afghan Taliban. The program of the new government in Pakistan and NWFP, unlike that of Musharraf, corresponds to the aspirations of the majority of people in the NWFP and FATA, including many conservatives, and it can win their support. If negotiations do not suffice to disarm the militants, the required military action, in support of an elected government trying to extend democracy and social services, will gain far more domestic support in Pakistan than Musharraf's balancing act ever could have. This government of Pakistan has articulated goals consistent with international objectives in the region and believes in pursuing negotiations in support of those goals without abandoning its own vision of a stable democratic Pakistan at peace with its neighbors.

One positive aspect of our occupied White House and its blatant, constant, lying is that the media has lost credibility as it continues to report the official line, and it continues to prove itself to be false.

The war that has been inflicted on America, on Iraq, and on an Afghan community that would have helped if they hadn't been abused, has discredited the policy of inflicting war and proved once again that sound leadership involves seeking peaceful resolution of conflicts. Proof continues to mount that it was the drive to war with Iraq that obsessessed and blinded our leaders so that they failed to see 9-11 developing. Now they are ruining a military, such that any future emergencies will not be countered by the prospect of American defenses.

The experts that have been proved right, the ones with the credentials and the background, are re-establishing their potential. In an administration that seeks actually to protect, not to mislead, this country, a role is deeply shown for the real authorities, the experts qualified by study and experience.

Being wrong all the time has not established the right wing as what this country needs in leadership.

Quite the opposite.

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Denial of the public's right to public information was in court today.

"On appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, government attorneys said the president has a well-established right to seek advice privately.

"Releasing lists of visitors would trample on that right, said Justice Department lawyer Jonathan F. Cohn, and the logs should be treated like other White House documents. (snip)"Rather than balancing the president's interest with the public's, Tatel said, the government was simply disregarding the Freedom of Information Act. He said the policy would allow the president to 'draw a curtain around the White House.'...

The occupied White House is trying to hide from the public what it has every right to know, in this case and in the case of its papers in the library they want to impose on SMU's reputation. Only if the rights of the public prevail in court will the worst administration ever let us see what it did and who came and went, a routine matter. They have a lot they need to hide, evidently.

Show Them The Money

Celebrate life, while you still can. There's my cheery little message after reading over the multitudes of Earth Day articles, that are for the most part readings of diminishing resources for maintaining life of all sorts. The last seven+ years have wreaked havoc on the world by unleashing the destructive forces that industrial developers can wield, without the laws that we had effected in previous public-minded administrations, to control them.

Then there's another way to look at our destruction of our world; it's not economically viable, so expect market forces to sell us the salvage effort. If we don't put in office public servants to guard the country, we can expect our captains of industry to make it profitable, and charge us for it. Seriously.

That cynical optimism appealed to me after all the bad news, from Mother Jones.

Clearly global warming will carry enormous costs. Taller levees. Higher food prices. Treating malaria patients in New Delhi and maybe New York. One estimate put the tab higher than the combined cost of both World Wars and the Great Depression. What we need to do is make the markets foresee that cost and act accordingly.

Of course, as any economist will quickly point out, such action will also come with a cost. Since carbon is going to have to get more expensive for markets to do their thing, someone is going to get hurt. So the next part of the equation involves figuring out who should bear that price. And here, interestingly, is another place where economic orthodoxy works pretty well. Take that shrinking cap on carbon emissions: One way to make it work is to hand out permits to big carbon producers—oil companies, coal companies, and so on—and steadily shrink the availability of permits. Those permits would be very valuable, and their cost would be passed on to consumers, whose price at the pump or off the back of the fuel-oil truck would increase. But the question is, How do you award those permits? (Or how do you set tax rates for carbon, etc.—the logic is the same.)

The answer favored by big industry is, Give us the permits. For free. Because we've spent years getting rich burning coal; if you're going to interfere with the system, make sure you don't touch the profits. But the more logical alternative is for the government to auction the permits off; with the proceeds we could, if we wanted to, simply send a check for, say, $1,000 to every American, which would go a long way toward covering the increased costs we Americans would face. This so-called Cap and Dividend concept—pushed for years by Peter Barnes, a cofounder of the progressive phone company Working Assets—is actually gaining some traction: Barack Obama, for one, has endorsed the permit-auction idea.

You could also, of course, take the auction proceeds and subsidize the transition to new clean-energy technologies—solar-thermal plants or windmills or whatever. This method has real attractions too, especially given that the most compelling analogies for the change we need come from the industrial boom catalyzed by World War II or the technological vigor of the Apollo era, both prompted by massive government spending. (snip)Which is why, in my ideal world, we'd use the power of democracy to add even more pieces of information to a market system. Tariffs that encourage local economies, for instance, because the data now show that more self-reliant societies are also more durable and more satisfying. Perhaps we should work for some totally different economic system—I hear pretty regularly from a different breed of skeptic who insists we'll never solve our problems until we go "beyond capitalism." But that debate is going to take a while—for the atmospherically relevant time frame, we're not going to change our basic economic framework any more than we're going to sign on to some new nature religion that would turn protecting the planet into some kind of Eleventh Commandment. Given how fast the ice caps are melting, speed is of the essence. And markets are quick. Given some direction, they'll help.(Emphasis added.)

Actually, as the lobbyists moved in on ethanol, (and I noticed that Jeb Bush was taking a leading role in promoting it), it had to be prostituted to be as little benefit combined with as much onus, to the public, as it would support. Catastrophe has followed. Not steal food from the starving? bleat the robber barons. That they can't just overcharge for what's left and make a few more shekels is really sad.

If the DFH-ism of leaking the truth, that funneling all wealth to WH friends is destroying the economy, can intrude into the closed minds of the anti-tax flock, as Diane reported this a.m., so can other rational aspects. This world is our only resource, and destroying it has proved .... unprofitable. If anyone recalls a moral tale told about Midas, he craved gold so much he turned everything precious into it - and found out he'd lost the world.

Time for the titans of industry to stop eating their own tails.

*********************************************

As Diane opined Monday, yes, ethics and morality is a great part of my objection to the death penalty. It is also a rational one, that we have so much evidence of mistaken convictions, that we are inevitably executing those who have committed no crime other than becoming the object of a rush to judgment. When law enforcement agencies are under pressure to provide a criminal, I do not trust them to find the right one. In Texas, a very high number have been found innocent by DNA evidence, 16 in Dallas alone. We have to stop criminal executions of the innocent.

Which DFH Wrote This?

The answer to the question posed by the header is Bruce Bartlett, who was a Treasury Department economist during the George H.W. Bush administration. His op-ed piece published in today's Los Angeles Times was a bit of a stunner. He actually took Republicans to the woodshed for their blatantly political maneuverings with respect to the tax cuts enacted in 2001.

It is an article of faith among Republicans that tax cuts are the cure for every problem the economy faces, and that tax increases are the equivalent of economic poison. Any hint by Democrats that the current administration's tax cuts should be revisited in light of changing economic or fiscal conditions is met with charges that they are proposing the largest tax increase in history.

The truth is that President Bush's tax cuts didn't do much good for the economy; they were mostly giveaways to GOP political constituencies and were little different conceptually from pork-barrel spending. Although there were some good elements to the tax cuts, such as the reduction in marginal tax rates, they were fatally undermined by their temporary nature. [Emphasis added.]

While I'm not as certain as Mr. Bartlett that the fatal flaw of those tax cuts was that they weren't permanent, I certainly agree that they were little more than giveaways to the wealthier friends of the Republican party. What is so nice about this column, however, is the frank analysis of the GOP's cynical move to further the 2000 Year Reich:

The fact is that the massive tax increase Republicans claim the Democrats are proposing is entirely the result of the GOP's penny-wise and pound-foolish policies. Rather than expend the effort to make their tax cuts permanent in the first place, they attached expiration dates to every major provision. Most will expire automatically at the end of 2010. The alleged tax increase that would result is simply a consequence of the tax system returning to what it was before 2001, when the first tax cuts were implemented. ...

But this isn't even the worst of the Republican dishonesty. That goes to projections from the Congressional Budget Office showing a sharp reduction in budget deficits after 2010. But these lower deficits result largely from the expiration of the tax cuts and the higher revenues that would result. Thus, Republicans are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They get to blame Democrats for advocating higher taxes while implicitly using those higher taxes to make future deficits smaller. ...

There is little doubt that the economy would have been stronger with permanent tax cuts. But that would have meant fewer tax cuts and thus fewer opportunities to buy votes. It also would have forced Republicans to deal with the true budgetary consequences of their actions.

Well, those of us who don't exactly fall into the super-rich category of tax payers are already dealing with "the true budgetary consequences" of the GOP's creative gaming of the system, and at this point it looks like the next president and the next generation of Americans will also be dealing with them.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Death Took A Holiday ...

... but the vacation is over.

Last week, Ruth commented on the Supreme Court decision which held the Kentucky cocktail for execution was not cruel and unusual punishment. She predicted that her home state would greet the decision with an uptick in executions:

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the state of Kentucky could administer a three-drug cocktail which has proved to be painful in some cases, to cause death for the condemned. In Texas, where many executions have been on hold, this makes many convicted prisoners closer to death.

Like Ruth, I find the death penalty both barbaric and execrable. My objections (and I suspect Ruth's) are based in ethics and morality. For the state to take a life as a punitive reaction is about as sensible as a mother slapping one child for slapping another and saying, "Stop that! Hitting is bad." Unfortunately, we are in the minority, or, more likely, in the unenviable position of being among the powerless right now.

That's why this op-ed column by Rudolph J. Gerber was so refreshing. Here's his CV as provided by the SacBee: "a former prosecutor, trial judge and a judge of the Arizona Court of Appeals for 13 years, [he] teaches at Arizona State University. He drafted Arizona's death penalty law." Not exactly your limp wristed DFH, eh?

What Mr. Gerber has done is provide a thoroughly grounded pragmatic approach to the issue and has concluded that maybe the death penalty is not such a useful idea and perhaps should be scrapped. I am, of course, not doing justice to Mr. Gerber's argument, but short of simply reproducing the entire column (or, heaven forfend, just providing a link and urging you to march on over), that's the best summation I can give.

Perhaps combining the ethical with the practical may be the best approach in these bottom line days. Here's some of Mr. Gerber's argument:

According to a recent report, in a state with more than 660 men and women on death row, California spends an estimated $117 million per year on death penalty cases that are in the judicial review process and at least $20 million annually on capital trials. On average, California carries out one execution every other year. In Georgia, the death penalty has drained the public defender system dry. One capital case can bankrupt a county, and the chances of execution for even those who are sentenced to death remain low. The average time between sentencing and execution is more than 10 years, and in many states such as California it takes much longer. And because of the exposure of glaring mistakes in the past, there is little prospect that the death penalty will become swifter or cheaper in the foreseeable future. ...

The halt in executions does demonstrate that the death penalty is not essential to our society. Many people are probably unaware, as its absence has no effect on people's daily lives, that the death penalty has been on hold since September.

The cases, however, are stacking up. At some point, executions may resume in greater numbers than we have been used to. This present period of quiet could be used to reflect on whether the death penalty is doing us any good.

Only 10 states had executions in 2007. The overwhelming number of executions carried out occurred in just one state – Texas. Are the residents of those states with no executions any less safe than the inhabitants of the few states in which executions occurred?

Several states, including New Jersey, New York, and California have either done away with the death penalty or are revisiting the statutes because of the costs attendant to the appeals accorded the defendants. Individual counties have to provide the costs of the captial trials and appeals and that money just isn't there anymore. Without that kind of assistance, poor defendants are deprived of due process, and, even with this Supreme Court, that just isn't going to fly constitutionally.

Given the costs attendant to a penalty which more often that not ultimately results in the alternative penatly, life without parole, the death penalty just does not make sense on all sorts of grounds. As Mr. Gerber points out, now is the perfect time to consider that:

...The death penalty is overdue for examination as a public policy – its burdens and alleged benefits should be fairly weighed. For many years, we have only considered the death penalty in theory – whether it might be appropriate for the most horrible crime. But the death penalty in practice is what needs to be examined....